Monday 11 February 2008

"Filament, normally comprised of the duo of Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M, is joined here by Swiss percussionist/electronicist Gunter Muller for a series of calm, sparse improvisations which are eerily evocative and strangely beautiful. By "limiting" themselves to fairly low-tech electronics and by simply relaxing and taking their time to investigate each sound-world encountered, this trio succeeds brilliantly in keeping the listener extraordinarily interested and focused, as the sounds tumble forward in logical yet surprising fashion. There tend to be high and low frequency borders established by Sachiko's sine waves and low, throbbing drones (presumably supplied by Otomo), sandwiching all manner of midrange activity by Muller on delicate percussion and Otomo's turntablism. Throughout, there's a warm and inviting quality not always found on recordings in this genre, the various hums generally taking on a consonant nature and the rhythmic patterns muted instead of harsh. But it's the non-stop inventiveness of the musicians involved which make this such a success and a superb example of the heights this type of music can achieve". Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide

"A post-Ground Zero Yoshihide and Sachiko Matsubara square off against For 4 Ears proprietor Gunter Muller in this superior sequel to 1998's Filament 1 (Extreme). Matsubara again works solely with the sine wave emissions of a sampler emptied of all memory. Her choice of sounds may be limiting, but she resourcefully bends and tweaks the clean, shrill frequencies in sympathetic response to Muller's ultra-sparse freeform percussion and spattering of electronic crackle. An uncommonly restrained Yoshihide, acting anything but the plunderphonic dervish, supplies the tiniest fragments of sampled CD and vinyl grooves. Throughout the first two pieces, the trio's improvisation is surgically precise - an exacting, controlled performance that produces just enough audible information to suggest the memory traces of music and maintain a peripheral conscious presence. An infrequent blip quickens the pulse; a frugal drum-machine tattoo or the ghost of a recorded voice pricks the ears like a lance. The busier "Filament 2-3" and "Filament 2-5" are genuinely exciting. Matsubara and Muller's electronics fall in unpredictable anti-patterns, sounding on the former like the enigmatic growlers and whistlers heard in VLF-shortwave spheric recordings and mimicking Xenakis-like packets of compressed computerized sound-data in the latter. Yoshihide isn't quite as stingy with his well-chewed sound-bites in these later "Filament"s, and the plentiful bits of microscopic sound begin to form macroscopic clumps. Muller, an experienced improviser whose seemingly haphazard and disposable contributions here are in fact the backbone for the process of cohesion, is the key to Filament 2's success. His dry clicks, so prominent as to suggest an almost techno-minimalist grid on "Filament 2-4," corral the dispersed sampledelic debris. Like a vigilant sheepdog, Muller drops a percussive signal or an admonishing bleep to redirect the flow of the improvisation whenever he senses that Matsubara or Yoshihide has strayed from the instinctive course". Gil Gershman

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